about us

Byron and Deanne McKeown have enjoyed an excellent reputation for fine quality, unique designs and superb customer relations since the founding of their first of three galleries in Sedona, Arizona in 1980. Their online Gallery remains dedicated to customer satisfaction and to offering a collection of work that reflects a commitment to excellence regardless of medium or price.

Sedona is an area renowned for a vital arts community and outstanding natural beauty. This stimulating environment, plus a love of travel and research, has engendered bodies of work for both Byron and Deanne that can be charmingly regional, but also reflect concepts in thought and design that are timeless and universal as illustrated by their exclusive collection of unique crosses.

Deanne McKeown

I was born in Missouri and lived in early childhood in the Pinal Mountains of Central Arizona. The memories of those years made an indelible impression...the cliffs and canyons of Arizona have always formed my sense of "home" and now, the inspiration for my work.

Although many of my early years were spent in Missouri, it was home I came back to when my husband, Byron, and I moved to Sedona in 1979. Over the years, Byron and I have owned three galleries in Sedona and are presently pursuing our personal careers as artists.

Through the years I have explored a variety of media - painting and printmaking ( my major areas of study at the Kansas City Art Institute), fiber, leaded glass, graphic design and most recently, sculpture. For many years I worked in the field of Medical Illustration, both as director of the Design and Illustration department at the University of Kansas Medical School and as a free lance Illustrator of medical books.

"None of us perceive the world in exactly the same way. Our oneness lies in a yearning to touch and to understand. My work is an endeavor to share my thoughts and vision through form and color and relationships, hoping to charge my images with meaning which will reach across the spaces between us.

In looking back over a lifetime of working and exploring, I realize that I have never created art -- art has been, and is now, creating me."

Byron McKeown

Kansas City, Missouri was my home for many years. In 1956 I enrolled at the Kansas City art Institute. That proved to be one of the smartest things I've ever done in my life.

I entered the magical world of visual arts.

And, I met the girt who was to become my best friend, my partner and my wife.

It was here that I met some of the brightest and most frustrating people I've ever had the pleasure to know. We were all companions on the ship we sailed through those exciting times. We pretended to things we weren't while we searched for what we might be.

We shared the joy when we occasionally caught a glimpse of what our future could be.

I wasn't taught "to do art". Instead, I was encouraged to ask questions. More importantly, I was encouraged to find the answers for myself. I learned the difference between just looking at something and really understanding what I saw. I learned that there are an infinite number of ways to see using the visual language. I learned that you had to identify a problem before you could solve.

I learned to explore.

I discovered the excitement only found in the creative process.

I learned to appreciate excellence though I rarely achieve it. The closest I come is in the ephemeral areas of concept and integrity. Since I believe that my next effort will be my best, I will continue to pursue excellence. It's important for me to know, each time, just how much I've missed my goal.

Today, almost fifty years later, pursuit still is more exciting to me than achievement.

In Vermont there' s a tombstone which dates from around 500 B.C. The name on the stone is written in the ancient Ogam alphabet and spells Y-G-H-N or, YOGHAN, since vowels were omitted in Ogam. In modern spelling the name would EOGHAN which is Scot's Gaelic for EWAN, my Scottish clan. This is the mark I use to sign my work and the logotype that appears on each of these pages.